{"id":49515,"date":"2015-11-17T22:02:05","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T04:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=49515"},"modified":"2015-11-17T06:57:55","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T13:57:55","slug":"perfect-time-to-abolish-executive-presidency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/11\/17\/perfect-time-to-abolish-executive-presidency\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfect Time to Abolish Executive Presidency"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Today the executive presidency is a threat to democracy, national security and law and order. Its dictatorial powers decide which party wins the general election, who should be the prime minister and opposition leader and even whose crimes are punishable and whose crimes are to be forgiven. Further, the executive president decides the outcome of an investigation. If the outcome doesn\u2019t please the executive president, he\/she removes ministers and officials. Executive\u2019s siblings and close family members are always above the law. It must be abolished and the parliament fully empowered. There has never been a better time than now. Most UNP members (at least 70), 41 UPFA MPs, 14 TNA MPs and 6 JVP MPs would support it at this moment. Mustering the support of another 20 MPs is not difficult on policy. In fact, the incumbent president and his two immediate predecessors in 1994 and 2005 promised to abolish it. Chandrika even gave a date (July 15, 1995) by which she would abolish it. That promise won 62.5% of the vote.<\/p>\n<p>Unless it is abolished now, the incumbent will continue in his most despotic manner. His successor cannot be any better.<\/p>\n<p>In today\u2019s context, the executive president is not needed to dissolve provincial councils in the event they violate the law. 13A and its schedules specify what the provinces can and cannot do. Any contravention is a very serious offence as it violates the constitution. The former and the present presidents didn\u2019t dissolve the northern provincial council even when its conduct was illegal and separatist. Therefore, the executive presidency has no worth in disciplining provincial councils. If a party which is not in the president\u2019s good books wins an election, the president will not let that party run the province, local body or the parliament. The incumbent removed a number of legitimately elected chief ministers.<\/p>\n<p>The SLFP also gains by abolishing executive presidency. Due to a clause introduced in 2006, the national president (if a member of the SLFP) becomes the SLFP leader. Given the make up of the SLFP hierarchy, it is unlikely to be changed soon. If the executive presidency is abolished, this provision is frustrated. That would allow a more consensual leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dilrook Kannangara Today the executive presidency is a threat to democracy, national security and law and order. Its dictatorial powers decide which party wins the general election, who should be the prime minister and opposition leader and even whose crimes are punishable and whose crimes are to be forgiven. Further, the executive president decides the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}